'Office space' holds flotsam, jetsam of a long lifetime

Generally — you’ll have to take my word for this – I’m a pretty neat guy.

The desk is flanked by file cabinets…the tops of which are overflowing with back issues of newspapers and magazines.

I keep my clothes carefully folded in my dresser or hung in the closet; my medicine cabinet is carefully organized; even my refrigerator is periodically cleaned.

The exception to the rule is the desk at which I’m sitting now and the small, right angle of "office space" in a corner of the living room in the apartment where I now live.

The desk, with the computer and monitor, is flanked on either side by several file cabinets and book cases, the tops of which are overflowing with back issues of newspapers and magazines, the shelves jammed with photo albums and other memorabilia from moments long past.

One of these days, I’ll have to decide what to do with a lot of it.

There is, for example, my stamp collection.

I started collecting when I was a youngster growing up in Bergenfield, in the days when Franklin Roosevelt was president and his good friend Jim Farley was postmaster general.

Most of my first stamps were "used," removed from an envelope by soaking it in water. They were worth less than their original three-cent face value.

As I grew older and became a more-serious collector, I specialized in "mint," or unused, U.S. commemoratives.

And today I have – just a minute while I count them – 11 albums, beginning with the first U.S. commemoratives issued in 1893.

Each stamp is carefully protected in an acetate cover, and I suspect that, by now, the collection is worth a few dollars.

But no one ever seems interested in looking at it, and I assume after I’m gone they’ll probably sell it for about half its catalogue value to some dealer.

Then there are a lot of other things that probably have no value, other than sentimental.

On another shelf there are – I won’t bother counting them – a dozen or more photo albums from all of the trips my wife and I took together.

I recall that I once counted that we had visited more than 55 countries.

But, but it would be impossible to even come up with an accurate count now because some of them – like East Germany – no longer exist and others – like Yugoslavia – have been split into four or five smaller ones.

Maybe, when the great-grandkids get a bit older, they’ll want to take some of them to school when they’re studying geography — that is, if they still study geography.

And there are several scrapbooks I once put together.

One of them has clippings and photos from my early days as a newspaperman.

Another contains as many photos, maps and other documents as I was able to assemble relating to my service in the Pacific during World War II, including a copy of the daily log of one of the ships on which I served.

My daughters – with my approval – took most of our family photo albums after I lost my wife and moved into this apartment.

But, I kept a couple of them for myself, ones that I knew contained some of my favorite photos.

And, of course, on my desk there are the framed photos of my wife and me and her small, passport photo – one of my favorites – which I have taped to the computer monitor so I can glance at her from time to time.

Finally, on the floor, alongside one of the file cabinets, there’s a plastic box that I haven’t looked in since I originally packed it when I moved here.

But I have a pretty good idea of what’s in it…the flotsam and jetsam of a long life.

Our marriage license. My wife’s and my high school diplomas. One of her report cards. Our daughters’ birth certificates and baptismal certificates. My discharge from the service. An insurance policy. Financial statements. The title to the car. My will. Dolores’ birth certificate, born in 1925. Her death certificate, dated Jan. 16, 2010.

In that box there’s probably a lot of paper that is no longer of value; and I guess that I should go through it one of these days to make sure everything is in order.

'Office space' holds flotsam, jetsam of a long lifetime

The desk is flanked by file cabinets…the tops of which are overflowing with back issues of newspapers and magazines.

I keep my clothes carefully folded in my dresser or hung in the closet; my medicine cabinet is carefully organized; even my refrigerator is periodically cleaned.

The exception to the rule is the desk at which I’m sitting now and the small, right angle of "office space" in a corner of the living room in the apartment where I now live.

The desk, with the computer and monitor, is flanked on either side by several file cabinets and book cases, the tops of which are overflowing with back issues of newspapers and magazines, the shelves jammed with photo albums and other memorabilia from moments long past.

One of these days, I’ll have to decide what to do with a lot of it.

There is, for example, my stamp collection.

I started collecting when I was a youngster growing up in Bergenfield, in the days when Franklin Roosevelt was president and his good friend Jim Farley was postmaster general.

Most of my first stamps were "used," removed from an envelope by soaking it in water. They were worth less than their original three-cent face value.

As I grew older and became a more-serious collector, I specialized in "mint," or unused, U.S. commemoratives.

And today I have – just a minute while I count them – 11 albums, beginning with the first U.S. commemoratives issued in 1893.

Each stamp is carefully protected in an acetate cover, and I suspect that, by now, the collection is worth a few dollars.

But no one ever seems interested in looking at it, and I assume after I’m gone they’ll probably sell it for about half its catalogue value to some dealer.

Then there are a lot of other things that probably have no value, other than sentimental.

On another shelf there are – I won’t bother counting them – a dozen or more photo albums from all of the trips my wife and I took together.

I recall that I once counted that we had visited more than 55 countries.

But, but it would be impossible to even come up with an accurate count now because some of them – like East Germany – no longer exist and others – like Yugoslavia – have been split into four or five smaller ones.

Maybe, when the great-grandkids get a bit older, they’ll want to take some of them to school when they’re studying geography — that is, if they still study geography.

And there are several scrapbooks I once put together.

One of them has clippings and photos from my early days as a newspaperman.

Another contains as many photos, maps and other documents as I was able to assemble relating to my service in the Pacific during World War II, including a copy of the daily log of one of the ships on which I served.

My daughters – with my approval – took most of our family photo albums after I lost my wife and moved into this apartment.